A.D. 30(117)

“What a queen you would make, Maviah, daughter of Rami. What a queen indeed. I don’t think I’ve ever heard an emissary speak the truth so plainly before. They all lie, you know. Politics is only a game of lies and treachery. You do realize that Aretas may now kill you for telling me the truth, even with my payment.”

“That is my concern, not yours.”

“Indeed.” He faced me and sighed. “I will give you his payment on the condition that you be as truthful with him. He must know that I expect his attack even now and am prepared.”

I’d already decided I must.

“Of course.”

“Well then, my fate is in your hands as well.”

“Perhaps.”

He hesitated.

“Spend the night,” he finally said. “Dine with us at my table. You can leave in the morning.”

I considered his request briefly but felt no desire to spend more time in his wife’s company.

“We will wait for your contingent beyond the gates, as the sun rises.”

“A pity.” Again he sighed. “As you wish. Sunrise it is.”

I offered him a shallow bow. “Thank you.” I turned to leave, then realized I wasn’t yet finished, so I faced him again.

“There is one more thing.”

“I hate to think—it’s a heavy payment already.”

“It’s about the one who comes after the Baptizer.”

He responded slowly. “What of him?”

“He speaks of a new way for the heart—Jew, Roman, or Bedu, it doesn’t matter. Does this threaten you?”

“The Baptizer denounces my marriage.”

“Does Yeshua?”

Herod hesitated and I spoke before he could respond.

“You will find no fault in him when the time comes.”

“You’ve met him?”

“He changed my life,” I said.

And then I left Herod’s courts.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX





IT TOOK our caravan of twenty camels four days with a guard of fifty to reach the Nabataean border, and another three days with twenty of Aretas’s best warriors to reach Petra once again. How Aretas knew to have the warriors ready at the border didn’t matter so much to me. Nor did it matter why Petra was prepared for our arrival—not just the rulers, but the entire city, as if Herod himself were making a grand entry.

My mind was preoccupied with other thoughts. Thoughts of Yeshua. Thoughts of Stephen and Nicodemus. Thoughts of what the master’s way truly was, so far from Palestine.

And thoughts of why the clarity of my experience with him was so quickly fading, with each mile and each day, it seemed. So I clung to my thoughts, determined not to let his power slip away.

I knew little of Yeshua’s full teaching, for I had spent only a few days with him. I had learned much from Stephen, but Stephen was still learning himself.

And yet all that I had seen and heard was so very simple that even a child might understand it, I thought. So simple that it rattled the mind, for Yeshua’s way was wholly contrary to the ways of the world, in particular the laws of religion and the kingdoms on earth.

Religion offered reward and punishment through laws of eating and drinking and daily activities. Failing these laws plunged one into shame and guilt. But Yeshua seemed to ignore such laws and spoke of love and of something far more offensive to the religious mind.

Faith. A child’s faith. When the storm came, to trust in Yeshua who was one with the Father, even as a young child might trust a perfectly loving father. This was what it meant to believe.

Did I trust, then? This was the question that haunted me those many hours upon the she-camel as it plodded over the terrain.

Did I trust the Father who, according to Yeshua, would give to me more than any earthly father might give to his child?

I heard his words still: If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.

Did I trust?

And more: If anyone steadfastly believes in me, he will himself be able to do the things that I do; and he will do even greater things than these.

Did I trust? Did I have faith? Did I believe in this way?

But I now had at my disposal a way to know if I trusted. By only listening to my own heart, I would know if it placed its faith in the storm or in Yeshua, who was the way.

If I feared the storm, my faith was in its power.

If I feared for my body, my faith was in that body, what I would eat or drink, how it might survive and be satisfied.

If I feared for Judah’s life, I put my faith in death and in him.

If I feared Aretas, I put my faith in his ability to hurt me, like any storm.

If I feared my own misunderstanding, I put my faith in my own ability to know the mystery beyond me.